Tuesday, May 3, 2016

Leicester City and Tottenham: "Is It Possible to Cry a River?"

From R&D Magazine:

With Tottenham's dreams of Premier League glory shattered before their very eyes by a 2-2 draw at Stamford Bridge, University of Leicester students research whether it is possible to really cry a river.

Musicians Arthur Hamilton, Justin Timberlake and unsympathetic people across the world have encouraged others to 'cry me a river', a put-down phrase to make light of people's problems.

University of Leicester Natural Sciences students Leah Ashley and Robbie Roe have examined the plausibility of people around the world crying enough tears to create a river, based on the flow rate of the world's shortest river – the Roe River in Montana, United States, which is 61m in length.

The river was chosen as the basis for the calculations as it was assumed to have a low volume while maintaining the title of 'river' and having a characteristic flow rate; while other rivers may be slower-moving, the volume of water also impacts the flow rate.

It was decided that in order to cry a river the best way to model it would be to use the amount of water that flows through it in a day. The Roe River is known to discharge between 156-193 million gallons per day.

Taking the lower volume limit as the most achievable target this equates to 709,190,040 litres per day – and with the average volume of a human tear being around 6.2 micro litres, this would be far more than the world's population could cry, even if everyone on Earth was feeling particularly crestfallen.

However, while copious blubbering may not be able to create a river, it could fill an Olympic size swimming pool, the students suggest....MORE